Demon’s Souls Strategy Guide: The Bosses of the Shrine of Storms

Demon’s Souls is the type of game that mercilessly tears you to shreds your first playthrough than kicks you while you’re down. It’s also beautiful, original, and incredibly innovative, so in my experience people either love it or they hate it. At first I was a member of the former group, but after investing a over fifty hours spread across three character classes, I’ve obviously become quite fond of the game. The best way to describe playing Demon’s Souls is to compare it to being in a relationship with the person of your dreams, however; said person of your dreams is abusive, and tends to kick your unsuspecting ass from time to time before giving you a kiss and helping you back up.

So I’m here, dear reader, to help you get through this relationship and the abuse it brings with it so you can better enjoy this amazing game. Demon’s Souls’ world is extraordinarily deep, so that means you’ll probably miss a lot of what the game has to offer your first time around. The following series of strategy guides, much like my previous five that covered each individual world, will focus on a specific feature or area in the game. Warning, there will be spoilers. Before we begin I should probably throw out a quick warning to newcomers to the land of Boletaria: this game’s unforgiving nature might sometime make you feel the urge to violently toss your controller at a nearby wall, but I promise this guide will reduce the number of broken controllers to a minimum. Also, the following isn’t necessarily a walkthrough, more a collection of words of wisdom, tips, and facts that could quite possibly save you from tossing your PS3 out a window.

Part Four: The Bosses of the Shrine of Storms

Adjudicator: The first thing you should know when fighting this boss is that he is butt ugly. Does that factoid have any relevance to killing him? Not really, it’s just the first thing you’ll notice when fighting him. This guy is what I’ll look like a few weeks after Mass Effect 2 comes out, which is to say I won’t be pretty. You start off on the top tier of a winding stairs that lead down to the boss who sits at the center. If you insist on fighting him from here, though I don’t recommend it, he will be lashing out at you with his tongue that actually breaks away sections of the floor. I prefer the up close and personal method of kickassery when it comes to this guy, so if you do too than you’ll need to make it to the bottom floor and immediately start whacking away at the large metal shard sticking out of the side of his gut. When he’s about to swipe at you with his sword, (it’s the Meat Cleaver, which you can get) start running counter-clockwise around him and he shouldn’t be able to hit you. Once you do enough damage to the shard he’ll double over in pain allowing you to strike his weak point, the bird atop his head. Keep this up and he should go down rather quickly, and if you’re having trouble get some Sticky White Stuff or a magically enhanced weapon as magic does quite a bit of damage against him.

Old Hero: If you have a bow than this fight will be easy peasy lemon squeezy (now that I’ve been able to use that phrase in a post my life is complete). As soon as, or before, you enter the fog equip the Thief’s Ring so he won’t notice you. This boss is blind so he relies on sound to find you. Just fire at him once, wait for him to yell, than fire again. Keep this up and he’ll go down without you ever taking a hit. But beware: if you fire at him twice he will find you and attack you, so only hit him once than wait for him to calm down. If you don’t have a bow, though by now you should since the White Bow is readily available to you earlier in this area, he’s weak against poison. If you have the Demon’s Prank spell (it only costs 500 souls) than that will be extraordinarily useful in slaying this boss since it provides the perfect distraction.

Storm King: This is one of my favorite fights for two reasons: you get to use a bitchin’ sword and it takes place in a rather gorgeous set piece. When you first enter this area you’ll notice a bunch of flying mantas and a colossal one above them. Don’t worry about the big guy for now as your first goal is to slay a enough of the mantas until you get his attention. Go to the glowing object in the area littered with jagged rocks and you’ll find the Stormruler sword. This sword is awesome, though only for a limited time, because when you attack with it the weapons sends a wave of energy towards the enemy cutting them in half. This kills the flying mantas in one swipe and can make quick work of the Storm King (unless you’re in new game+). When you kill enough of the flying mantas the big guy will swoop down firing waves of the piercing spikes the flying mantas fire individually. Hide behind a rock until he’s done than jump out and attack him as many times as you can before he gets too high. He’ll swoop down again, fire more spikes, and will continue to until you finish him off.

So that’s all you need to know when fighting the bosses inside the Shrine of Storms. In case you missed it I’ve already covered the bosses of the Boletarian Palace, Stonefang Tunnels, and the Tower of Latria. Next I’ll cover the bosses waiting to take you out in the Valley of Defilement. If you’re having a specific problem with the game I might’ve covered it in my previous series, but if not just drop me a line at iicedesigner at yahoo dot com and I’ll cover it in a strategy guide.

I ruthlessly tear apart the English language by lending my "talents" to a handful of websites including Cheat Code Central, Game Zone and Bloody Disgusting, all while working on acquiring a degree in Video Game Design. Oh, and I'm also desperately searching for a social life.